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Walking With Rhinoceroses

By CHRISTOPHER S. WREN;

Published: February 21, 1993

BULLFIGHTERS may dignify their showdown with the bull as a moment of truth, but when I met the first two-ton rhinoceros advancing through the African bush, my gut instinct was to run. There wasn't much doubt who was the interloper. But Norman Galli, the ranger guiding our party, quipped that he would shoot the first person who bolted. "To urban people who've never been put under pressure, the first instinct is to run," he said. "It's simple fear."

"If you enter a white rhino's space, he'll charge you," Mr. Galli said before we set off walking through the heart of rhinoceros country in Natal province, on the eastern coast of South Africa. Trying to outrun a charging rhinoceros was far riskier than standing still or dodging behind a tree, he said. The white rhinoceros had such poor eyesight and was so clumsy that it was likely to run right past, unlike the smaller but more aggressive black rhinoceros.

"I've never had a white rhino run past and turn back whereas a black rhino might," Mr. Galli mused.

It isn't that easy to tell the difference in a charging rhino. Mr. Galli toted a .375-caliber Winchester rifle, but he just shouted at the rhinoceros, which trotted off. Only then did Joseph Manqele, the Zulu game scout, lower his own rifle.

Stalking rhinoceroses on foot has become a popular adventure in the Hluhluwe Umfolozi Park reserve, an expanse of hills, woods and grassland bounded by two branches of the Umfolozi River. Of South Africa's remaining 640 black rhinoceroses, 350 live in Umfolozi and Hluhluwe, as do up to 2,000 white rhinoceroses. The trail walk is run by the Natal Parks Board and offers one of Africa's best travel bargains, at about $185 a person for tents, meals and guides for four days. My son, Chris, a college student with a fascination for wildlife, and I were able to stay only two days because of my work.

We were part of a group of four that gathered last January at Mdindini, a tented camp in the reserve where parties spend the first night before fording the Umfolozi River to enter the wilderness. As we dined on a barbecue, a rosy sunset framed the trees in silhouette along the silver bend of the river. A crescent moon broke through a band of low clouds on the horizon. Stars popped out in the darkening sky and cicadas joined reed frogs in a cacophony of nocturnal sounds. Overhead, bats swooped through the trees. Somewhere beyond the hills, a thunderstorm rumbled and, just across the river, we could hear rhinoceroses crashing through the reeds.

Of all the marvelous animals in Africa, few seem as intriguing as the rhinoceros, which is why rhinoceros trail walks at Umfolozi book up months in advance.

"There's something very special about sharing the same space with them," Jeff Gaisford, a Natal Parks Board official who joined our party, said of the rhinoceros. "It's an interesting animal in its design. It's prehistoric in appearance."

To tourists like me, black and white rhinoceroses look the same, down to their gray or brownish color. Mr. Galli explained that the white rhinoceros is larger, with a massive head and square lip. The rarer black rhinoceros, so identified for its darker mouth, has a smaller head and a hooked lip. The white rhinoceros grazes on grass, while the black one browses on trees and shrubs. The Zulus living in Natal seldom confuse the two. The Zulu language calls a white rhinoceros "umkhombe" and a black rhinoceros "ubhejane."

After breakfast, we hung our shoes around our necks and waded across the knee-deep Umfolozi, which means "river of fibers" in Zulu. The meandering river is so shallow and laden with silt that, unlike other African rivers, it cannot support crocodiles or potentially lethal bilharzia parasites. Our only companion was a terrapin patiently swimming upstream.

Historically, this area tucked between the Black and White Umfolozi was royal hunting grounds for the early 18th-century Zulu monarch Shaka. He allowed only his blacksmiths to live in the Umfolozi reserve, which they guarded as his policemen. Once or twice a year, King Shaka would come with his entourage to hunt. The reserve abounds in Zulu artifacts. We found stones used over a century ago to grind corn and later a rutted chunk of sandstone against which passing warriors sharpened their assegais, or stabbing spears.

Mr. Galli pointed out other spoor in the bush. White rhinoceros dung was grassy, while dung of the black rhinoceros had twigs snipped off diagonally by the animal's overlapping jaw. Black and white rhinoceroses coexist because they do not compete for food -- one browses while the other grazes -- though, he added, "They do a bit of sparring."

A few years earlier, one Umfolozi trail party watched two white rhinoceroses fight to the death; the incident was written up in the journal of trips that Mr. Galli showed me. The young challenger didn't know the territory and charged over a cliff. The aging defender fell over the cliff as well. "With that weight, you're looking at two or three tons, and with that big head, it pulls the body down," Mr. Galli said.